'My Husband and I' at Pentameters Theatre

Many organisations jumped on the royal wedding band wagon; shops, restaurants and especially pubs. Yet there was one sector where it I thought it seemed to pass by and that was in the arts, especially in Hampstead's local theatres. That was until I noticed that Pentameters were putting on a show called My Husband and I, three short plays about three of the royal family's most famous couples.

    I'm going to be honest, I expected this play to bore me. I'm not knowledgeable about the history of the royal family. My partner enjoyed it thoroughly, but then she knows something about the figures we were seeing. Yet I was pleasantly surprised.

    To go through each of the plays and talk about them separately and in detail would make for dull reading and would also spoil the show. It's a simple concept, and in our voyeuristic generation, what more could you ask for other than a glimpse into lives that we'll never have a chance to see. How true the encounters are between these monarchs and their partners, we'll never know, but it's interesting to watch none-the-less.

    As a whole, the show is short (about an hour and a half, plus an internal inexplicably put after the first 15 minutes) but very enjoyable. Gabriella Gadsby and Oliver Fabian present a young and passionate Victoria and Albert. The most serious of the three plays and the most touching. The second half sees Charles II played by a charismatic Toby Eddington and his relationship with Catherine of Braganza (Eva Gray). It's enjoyable, though slightly too long, especially when compared with the two shorts that sandwich it. Our finale is Henry VIII and his final wife Catherine Parr. Henry is played convincingly by Bernard Lawrence (there seems to be a club of men born purely to play Henry VIII) with Ceres Squire playing Catherine. It's possibly the most enjoyable piece of the night, though there's not much in it.

    So, despite the royal wedding being well and truly over, if you still fancy a bit of a nose into the private lives of some of our most famous monarchs, Pentameters is the place to go!